Dignitas have re-entered the CS:GO professional scene with thunder and lightning. The American organization has turned to the legendary Ninjas in Pyjamas lineup from years prior, signing four of the five as players, and adding the fifth as a coach and manager.
NiP return in spirit as Dignitas
After news broke out that Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg has parted ways with the NiP organization, the rumors that he will be reuniting with his former teammates were all over the place. It turns out all of it was true, and the CS:GO legends will be playing on the server together once more, under the flag of Dignitas.
Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund, Adam “friberg” Friberg and Richard “Xizt” Landström join f0rest on the active roster. The fifth member of the original Ninjas in Pyjamas – Robin “Fifflaren” Johansson, will not be coming out of retirement and will instead serve as the team’s coach as well as its manager. The playing lineup will also feature young Norwegian AWPer Håkon “hallzerk” Fjærli, whom the veterans will try to play around in hopes of a return to glory.
Who are NiP and Dignitas
GeT_RiGhT, f0rest, friberg, Xizt, and Fifflaren played together for NiP from August 2012 – the inception of CS:GO, until November of 2014 – Fifflaren’s retirement. Together they won a ton of trophies, most notably ESL One Cologne, which is to this day Ninjas in Pyjamas’ only Major title. They hold the unbelievable record of 87 straight map wins on LAN, set in 2012-13.
Fifflaren’s retirement set off a series of fifth player alterations that didn’t lead to any consistent results and the remaining four also began to depart one by one, starting with friberg in 2017. Xizt followed in 2018, GeT_RiGhT was let go in 2019 and lastly, f0rest in 2020. Now the five have come together again, hoping to revive the glory days with the kind assistance of their young AWPer.
Dignitas, a storied franchise in Counter-Strike that hosted the core of Astralis years ago, were out of the scene for an extended period of time. Their most recent North American lineup was let go in August 2018 and we hadn’t heard much from the org in CS:GO since then. Until now. With their new lineup in place, only time will tell if this blast from the past is going to bring tears of joy or disappointment to their fans.
